Hello Goodbye Hello: A Circle of 101 Remarkable Meetings by Craig Brown Page A

two couples – Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh – but they are few and far between.
    Khrushchev enters a packed room. Everyone who is anyone is here: Edward G. Robinson, Judy Garland, Ginger Rogers, Kirk Douglas, Shelley Winters, Dean Martin, Debbie Reynolds, Nat ‘King’ Cole, Frank Sinatra, Maurice Chevalier, Zsa Zsa Gabor. Mrs Khrushchev is seated between Bob Hope and Gary Cooper. Conversation proves stilted.
    ‘Why don’t you move out here? You’ll like the climate,’ suggests Cooper.
    ‘No,’ replies Mrs Khrushchev. ‘Moscow is all right for me.’
    Khrushchev is on the top table, next to Skouras. Lunch has its awkward moments. When Khrushchev is told that his spur-of-the-moment request to visit Disneyland has been turned down, owing to security worries, he sends the American Ambassador to the UN a furious note. ‘I understand you have cancelled the trip to Disneyland. I am most displeased.’
    The after-lunch speeches are awkward. Khrushchev heckles Skouras during his speech of welcome, and further heckles Henry Cabot Lodge as he speaks of America’s affection for Russian culture. ‘Have you seen They Fought for Their Homeland ?’ he yells. ‘It is based on a novel by Mikhail Sholokhov.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Well, buy it. You should see it.’
    In his own speech, Khrushchev grows very bullish. ‘I have a question for you. Which country has the best ballet? Yours?! You do not even have a permanent opera and ballet theatre! Your theatres thrive on what is given to them by rich people! In our country, it is the state that gives the money! And the best ballet is in the Soviet Union! It is our pride!’
    After going on like this for forty-five minutes, he suddenly seems to remember something. ‘Just now, I was told that I could not go to Disneyland. I asked, “Why not? What is it? Do you have rocket-launching pads there?” Just listen to what I was told: “We” – which means the American authorities – “cannot guarantee your security there.” What is it? Is there an epidemic of cholera there? Have gangsters taken hold of the place?’ He punches the air, and starts to look angry. ‘That’s the situation I find myself in. For me, such a situation is inconceivable. I cannot find words to explain this to my people!’
    At last he sits down. The Hollywood audience applauds. As he is being shown to the sound stage to watch the movie Can-Can being filmed, 38 he recognises Marilyn Monroe and darts over to shake her hand. All wide-eyed, Marilyn delivers a line that Natalie Wood, a fluent Russian speaker, has coached her to say. For once, she gets it right first time: ‘We the workers of Twentieth Century-Fox rejoice that you have come to visit our studio and country.’
    Khrushchev seems to appreciate her effort. ‘He looked at me the way a man looks on a woman,’ she recalls.
    ‘You’re a very lovely young lady,’ he says, squeezing her hand.
    ‘My husband, Arthur Miller, sends you his greeting. There should be more of this kind of thing. It would help both our countries understand each other.’
    Afterwards, Marilyn Monroe enthuses, ‘This is about the biggest day in the history of the movie business.’ But when she gets back home, she has changed her tune. ‘He was fat and ugly and had warts on his face and he growled,’ she tells Lena. ‘Who would want to be a Communist with a President like that?’ 39
    But she is pretty sure that the Premier enjoyed their meeting. ‘I could tell Khrushchev liked me. He smiled more when he was introduced to me than for anybody else at the whole banquet. And everybody else was there. He squeezed my hand so long and so hard that I thought he would break it. I guess it was better than having to kiss him.’

NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV
    LAMBASTS
GEORGE BROWN
    Harcourt Room, Palace of Westminster, London
    April 23rd 1956
    A formal dinner is being held by the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party to honour Nikita Khrushchev, the